Examples of promotional methods

 

Equipment

 

Promotional Methods

 Promotional Methods are an important process in the development of my magazine as a range of different promotional methods will help to increase the readership and circulation of my magazine.
My magazine needs to have a big readership in order for it to be successful, to do this I must promote it effectively by using a range of different methods including traditional and modern ideas. Although advertising will result in the company investing a lot of money I believe this is a key component for any magazine as without promotion I wouldn't receive any revenue. Furthermore, my magazine is new and will need the help of promotion to make it well known.

New media

 

Project Log 26/11/13

This is a video version  describing what I worked on during today's lesson. The written version of this project log can be found below:

In today’s lesson, I caught up on documents for the research stage of my magazine.  I decided to do representation research of the artist Cheryl Cole as she is portrayed in the media to be a sex symbol for men.  I began by finding an image and annotating it following body language, facial expressions, accessory, style and overall representation in the media. I found this to be very helpful and effective as it gave me a clear idea of the different things I needed to address in my photo shoot.

Project Log 24/11/13

For homework, I continued to work on documents for the planning stage of my magazine. Firstly, I finished off my colour connotations; I found this very useful as this gave me clear understanding of the different colours and meanings associated with colours.  After I had finished the connotations, I developed ideas for the colour of my magazine.I decided on the colours –red, black and grey for the house style for my magazine as they follow strong, powerful and dominant connotations. I also finished the target audience research and adapted  on to prezi as I thought I had too many documents displayed on powerpoint or word.

Article Draft

 

Target Audience

Colour ideas

These are my differen choices of colour ideas for my magazine. As you can see, I included the colour red within my design - ~I believe this is a key colour of my magazine to represent the genre of pop/rock.

Colour connotations

 

 

Image ideas

 

 

Magazine Research: Q

 

Q magazine ideally appeals to young adults and both genders male and female. The use of the colour scheme – red, black and white appeals to the target audience and makes the magazine appropriate for mixed gender. From first looking at the magazine we are welcomed by the big bright company logo ‘Q’ this immediately brings the reader’s attention and would make the magazine stand out from the others when displayed on a magazine rack.  The magazine is followed by a well organised and sophisticated layout; this makes the product much easier to read and gives the idea of a professional look. The colour scheme – red, black and white is repeated through a series of Q magazines and makes the reader aware this is a product made by Q.  Furthermore, we are introduced to a main image of a popular music artist, the artist is portrayed to have a serious look and has been not been captured smiling.

The popular music artist Cheryl Cole displayed on the front cover is viewed by many girls to be their ‘role model’ and is depicted by young guys to be a ‘sexual icon’ therefore her presence within the magazine is suited to the dual gender target audience. The image portrays Cheryl Cole to be classy and elegant through the use of her body language. Her facial expressions convey her to not be smiling emphasising her seductive image for men. The use of her red lipstick reinforces this idea and contrasts with the red coloured masthead and sell lines pictured around the around cover of the page. The colour red is a key element of the image as red has strong connotations of love, romance and passion as well as wealth, superiority and importance. The use of this colour indicates her dominance and suggests her popularity within the music industry. She is presented to be standing in the rain against a black all and is captured from a front angle to emphasise her beauty. Her chest is shown to be partly bare as her jacket separates from the front– this again reinforces the idea of her being a sex symbol for the male audience.  Overall, I believe looking at this particular front cover has helped me to develop my ideas in the design of my magazine. 

Project Log 11/11/13

For homework, I finished off my double page spread article analysis as I was behind in classwork. I found this task easy and quick to do as I had previously written about front covers and contents pages for the following magazines: Q, NME and Kerrang. I also completed the following documents; props and costumes, contents ideas and cover lines. I found the document props and costumes useful for my photo-shoot as they gave me a clear idea of what things I should include to represent the theme of pop/rock.  I then completed the contents ideas, this document is vital for creating my contents page as the document includes details of the different sub-headings I will include within my contents page. Before starting this document, I looked back to my contents page analysis and found contents pages that were suitable for my magazine. I then decided to plan out my contents ideas in the style of Q and NME magazine including sub-headings such as features, regulars, reviews and news. Afterwards, I came up with several different cover lines relating to the different sub-headings. I found this task much harder than the other two as I could not be certain of the cover lines I will use until I write my article for my magazine.

Contents ideas

Props and Costumes

This is my mood board displaying the different props and costumes I will include in my photo-shoot. I have selected specific clothes, footwear, accessories and props that I believe will suit my magazine genre of pop rock. I want my magazine to looks professional and refined and the clothes I have chosen reinforce this idea. It is important for me to think of how I want my model to look in images so that I can ensure I take the pictures right the first time around, enabling myself to move and work quicker.

The type and colour of the models clothing are an important element to my magazine as they will need to relate to the theme of my music magazine - pop rock. In addition to this, the magazine images must interest the target audience which is men. I plan on including dark clothing as I want my images to look sophisticated and professional. Furthermore, the colour black has connotations of rock which relates to my genre. The type of clothing will range from leather skirts to leather jackets and tight black jeans to dark blouses. The clothing will be simple and basic to covey the typical clothing the audience of my magazine might wear. The model for my magazine will wear black footwear such as black boots or high heels to show a consistency between images. I will use a selection of close up shots, mid- shots and long shots from a variation of different angles so the pictures will alter with each other. The long shots are effective when conveying the footwear of the model as this type of shot will enable the audience to see a full length view of my model.

The model for my magazine will wear bold and vibrant make-up to interest the male target audience. I will include red-lipstick as red is conveyed to be a very powerful and dominant colour signifying importance and superior. Furthermore, the colour red adds sexiness and elegance and will help engage male attention. The cover model will also have dark, smoky eye-make up and white, pale foundation to introduce the idea of her being a sex symbol. The pale foundation will help emphasis these features and make them stand out from her dark clothing. I plan to include bold, vibrant make-up to my model to represent a change in her personality as she has gone from a sweet, innocent girl to a sexy, classy sex icon for men.

The model will also wear accessories including silver necklaces and earrings to create a diverse amongst my images. The silver jewellery will show up against the black and dark clothing making the outfit look more interesting and creative. After looking at a range of jewellery in shops such as Topshop, River Island and Zara I noticed these shops to include jewellery which involves studs, spikes and skulls. I plan to involve spikes in my models jewellery as this portrays the style of rock. Overall,  I do not want too much jewellery as I want the make-up of the model to be the main focal point of the photograph.

I will include props in my photo-shoot for the images displayed on my contents page and double page spread. I will feature musical props such as electric guitars, amps and microphones to represent the genre of pop rock. The use of props are an important feature to my magazine as they help create a variety in my photos and enable the audience to interact with my magazine as the audience will already be interested in music.

Project Log 06/11/13

At home, I went on the website 'dafont' and looked at all the different fonts available. I began looking in the basic section as I wanted a plain, simple title for my masthead.I also found a few interesting and unique fonts which I thought would suit my genre of magazine. I then typed in the word 'masthead' in preview to see  the style of writing. After experimenting with different fonts, I print screened the fonts I liked and added them to a word document. I then saved the list as an image and uploaded it to my blog.

Masthead designs

These are my different masthead designs for the masthead of my magazine.

Project log 02/11/13

During the half term, I caught up on all the work which was set as our class were behind schedule in comparison to the other class. I began researching into the conventions of music magazines as I believed this was a vital document in the step up to creating my magazine. This document would give me clear ideas of what made a good magazine and the kind of features I should include in my own. I talked about the key concepts, audiences, representations and institutions of music magazines.  I then continued to work on existing names and mastheads, I found this task really useful and effective as it gave me clear ideas of what I should and shouldn't involve in my masthead design. I looked at a range of different genres of magazines to display how the style and design of mastheads connect to the specific genre being presented.

On one of the days in half term I came in to school and created my audience survey. At first I found this task quite hard and confusing as I had never used the programme Survey Monkey before and was  a little unsure of how to create a questionnaire, however with a little help from my friend I soon gathered the just of it. I decided to include a mixture of questions varying from choice questions to one word answers as I believed this was more effective for the reader to understand. After my survey was completed, I decided to re-design my mood board as I noticed my blog was lacking creativity. After researching for good video websites, I found the website PowToon which included everything I needed. I quickly began copying and pasting images and re-adjusting the layout to create an animated effect. I included a range of images varying from artists to bands and from make-up designs to costumes ideas for my front cover model. After I was happy with my video, I uploaded it to YouTube and then embedded it onto my blog.

Institution Research